How to Move Abroad: Because Getting There Starts With Getting Hired

Everyone on the internet has an opinion about how much money you need to move abroad. Most of them are wrong — or at least, wrong for you.

This week I'm giving you a simple formula to calculate your actual savings target based on your specific situation: where you're going, which visa you're using, and how long you need to float yourself before income kicks in. Because your number is built from those things — not from a Reddit thread and not from what someone else paid to move to Barcelona in 2019.

I'm also getting into why the visa you choose changes everything about what you need financially — and how picking the right pathway for where you actually are right now might make this possible a lot sooner than you think.

This is the last money episode. We're closing this chapter with a real number, a real timeline, and zero excuses.

Moving abroad means making trade-offs. Every single person who has done it has had to make them — there is no version of this where you don't. The goal isn't to avoid them. It's to make them on purpose instead of by accident, because the accidental ones are the ones you end up resenting.

This week I'm breaking down the two trade-offs that trip people up the most — do you move now with less money or wait and keep saving, and do you ship your stuff or sell it all and start fresh. I'm also getting into how to stop treating every financial decision like a test of how serious you actually are about this move.

Spoiler: it's not. It's just math with feelings stapled to it.

Free download: 10 Money Hacks for Your Move Abroad

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Once people realize moving abroad might actually be possible, this is where things usually go sideways.

In this episode, I talk through the exact places I see people overspend when they’re scared, where they cheap out and regret it later, and how fear quietly drives a lot of money decisions during an international move. This isn’t about perfect budgeting or cutting everything fun — it’s about making trade-offs intentionally instead of panicking your way through them.

If you want to move abroad without burning cash, burning out, or resenting every decision you make along the way, this episode will help you slow down, get honest, and spend in ways that actually support the move.

There’s a moment in the move-abroad process that almost no one talks about — and it’s not the exciting beginning or the adrenaline-filled end.

It’s the messy middle.

In this episode of How to Move Abroad, I talk about the exact point where most people quietly bow out of their plans — not because they ran the numbers and the numbers said no, but because they didn’t run the numbers and let fear fill in the blanks.

We’re talking about money in a way that actually helps you move forward — not finance-bro advice, not Pinterest budgets, and not “you’ll figure it out when you get there” nonsense. Money feels personal because it carries history, stress, shame, and responsibility — especially for women and parents — and when it stays vague, it becomes overwhelming fast.

Free Guide to Savings

Appointments and processing timelines are the part of moving abroad people avoid until it is too late.

In this episode, I break down the difference between document timelines, appointment timelines, processing timelines, and your real life move timeline. I explain why appointments are often the real bottleneck, how to plan backwards so you stop getting surprised, and what to do when you cannot get a slot.

I also share my Austria appointment adventure and the lesson it taught me about building buffer time and backup plans.

Weekly task included: the Appointment Map.

Grab the PreparedAF timeline

In this episode, I break down the documents that control your moving abroad timeline, including passports, certified birth and marriage certificates, background checks, income proof, and when apostilles and translations matter.

I also explain the three ways people get delayed (wrong document version, authentication requirements, and expiration windows) and I give you a simple weekly task.

Grab PreparedAF to make your document checklist SIMPLE!

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Moving abroad is not expensive in one big way. It is expensive in dozens of small ones. In this episode, I break down what you should DIY, what is worth paying for, and where people waste money out of overwhelm instead of strategy.

We talk about how to decide based on risk, timeline, and complexity, which parts of moving abroad are safe to do yourself, and when paying for professional help actually saves you time, money, and stress. I also share common traps like paying for country selection before knowing your visa and buying courses without an action plan.

You will leave this episode with a simple pay vs DIY framework and a weekly task to help you stop panic spending and start making real progress toward moving abroad.

Free checklist

Proof of funds isn’t a personal attack... it’s a stability check. In this episode, I explain what proof of funds actually means in plain English, what typically counts as “proof” (income, savings, self-employment, combinations, and sometimes insurance), why the requirements change depending on your visa lane, and how to make a plan if you don’t meet the requirement yet, without turning it into a crisis.

• Proof of funds, translated into normal human language
• The youth hockey analogy: “Can you cover the season?” (that’s the whole point)
• What typically counts as proof
• Why your visa lane controls what proof-of-funds looks like
• What to do if you don’t meet it today: the levers you can pull (timeline, lane, documentation, country shortlist, buffer strategy)

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If you’re choosing a country before you know your visa lane, you’re not planning—you’re sprinting at Platform 9¾ without the Hogwarts letter. In this episode, I break down what a “visa lane” actually is, why it’s the first decision that makes everything else easier, and the most common visa lanes Americans use to move abroad (yes, some don’t require a job offer).

• The Platform 9¾ problem: why “dream country first” keeps you stuck
• What a visa lane is (the legal reason you get to live somewhere)
• The most common visa lanes Americans use:
  • Work-sponsored
  • Student
  • Freelancer/self-employed
  • Proof of funds / non-lucrative / financially independent
  • Family/ancestry/partner
  • Special programs (digital nomad, working holiday, etc.)
• The biggest mistakes I see:
  • Falling in love with a country before checking eligibility
  • Treating visas like a personality quiz
  • Thinking a job offer is the only way
  • “Researching” without producing a shortlist
• How to pick a lane without spiraling

Free visa checklist

Welcome to Season 2... and yes, the podcast has a new name. ABROADly Speaking is now How to Move Abroad. Same show, same feed, same me. I just got tired of pretending we’re here to “chat about life abroad” when what you actually need is a plan that works in real life.

In the new format, every episode ends with one weekly task because collecting information isn’t progress, and we're done with 'next year' energy.

In this kickoff episode, I’m talking about the thing that keeps most people stuck: the 47-tab spiral. It feels productive, but it’s usually just overwhelm in a trench coat.

This week’s task: the One-Page Move. You’ll pick 3 non-negotiables and 3 deal-breakers, and choose one next action to do in the next 7 days.

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Grab our free checklist.